This day in history...

On February 25, 1947, the Allied powers officially dissolve the state of Prussia. One of the most powerful regions of the Germanic territories for more than 400 years, Prussia was established as a Duchy in the 1500's and became a kingdom following the defeat of Napoleon. By the late 1800's it was so powerful that most of its more prominent families identified as Prussian rather than German. It fell under the rule of the Nazis, who de facto dissolved the kingdom by "emergency decree" in 1932.


On February 25, 1933, the USS Ranger (CV-4) is launched in Newport News, VA. The Ranger is the US Navy's first vessel to be designed and built as an aircraft carrier from the keel up; the first 3 carriers (Langley, Lexington and Saratoga) being converted from other types of vessels. The Ranger would earn two service stars and two battle stars fighting in the European Theatre in World War II. She was taken out of active duty and began service as a training vessel in 1944, decommissioned in 1946 and scrapped in 1947.


On February 25, 1972, The Edgar Winter Group releases "Hangin' Around" as the lead single for their upcoming album "They Only Come Out at Night." The song got little airplay, but deejays soon became fascinated with the B-side of the single, an instrumental fusion of hard rock and progressive called "Frankenstein." Recorded without a title by the band in the days when editing a song literally involved cutting and splicing tape, Edgar recalls the band had tape strewn all over the recording studio, and as they cut and spliced and cut and spliced, drummer Chuck Ruff commented,"This thing is like Frankenstein", giving the song a title. It is the first successful single to incorporate a synthesizer as lead instrument. The innovate Winter (who also plays saxophone and timbales in a unique "dueling percussion" section with Ruff), used an ARP synthesizer with a keyboard that was not built into the console, adding a shoulder strap to give him freedom of movement when they performed the song on stage. "Frankenstein" would hit number one on the U.S. and Canadian Top 40 charts and is a certified gold single. Rolling Stone lists it as one of the top ten instrumentals of all time.
The Midnight Special 1973 - 21 - Edgar Winter - Frankenstein - YouTube

 

On March 11, 222, Roman emperor Marcus Aurelius Antoninus is assassinated by soldiers assigned to him as bodyguards. He was 18 years old. Real name Elagabalus, Antoninus ascended to the throne at age 14 and lived a brief life that would make today's LGBT community pink with envy. Historians consider him one of the earliest transgender figures (he routinely wore makeup and wigs in public, insisted on being addressed as "lady" rather than "lord", and allegedly consulted a physician about the possibility of having a vagina cut into him). He also offended the religious community by marrying one of his Vestal Virgins. On his death, his body was dragged through the streets of Rome and thrown in the Tiber, and the Senate ordered damnatio memoriae, the systematic removal of his presence from public record.


On March 11, 1708, Queen Anne declines royal assent (essentially a veto) on the Scottish Militia Bill. The Restoration of the Scottish monarchy 50 years earlier had left that territory of Great Britain without a militia, and Parliament passed the bill to rectify the omission. The queen's advisors convinced her that a Scottish militia would not be loyal to her. No British monarch has refused royal assent in the 314 years since.


On March 11, 1927, the Roxy Theater opens in NYC. Conceived by film producer Herbert Lubin and innovative theater operator Samuel "Roxy" Rosathel, the Roxy was the largest movie theater in the world, with seating for just under 6,000. It also had a stage and a regular female dance troop, the Roxyettes, a permanent 110-piece symphony orchestra (largest in the world at the time), and also became famous for its well-dressed and ultra-courteous team of ushers. Intended as the flagship of a theater chain, the Roxy started out in trouble, as Rosathel's insistence on extravagance in every phase of construction ran the theater's final price tag to $12 million. Only one other was built, but the Roxy - known as the Cathedral of Motion Pictures - survived until 1960. Rosathel jumped ship in 1932, joining Rockafeller Center to help open Radio City Music Hall (he took the Roxyettes with him, renaming them the Rockettes). An office building with a TGI Friday's is now on the Roxy site.

 

On March 12, 1088, Urban II is elected 159th Pope of the Roman Catholic Church. Born Otho de Lagery, Urban II was a descendent of French nobility and bishop of Ostia, one of the seven diocese of Rome. He is primarily known for his speech to the 1095 Council of Clermont, which set the First Crusade in motion.


On March 12, 1950, an Avro 689 Tudor V airliner chartered privately to transport a group of rugby fans from Dublin to a match in Belfast, crashes near Llandrow Aerodrome in Wales. Eighty of the 83 people (78 passengers, 5 crew) aboard were killed in what was the worst air disaster to date. Investigators determined that the plane's weight distribution on loading was incorrect, affecting its center of gravity and causing a stall. (photo is of the actual aircraft involved.)


On March 12, 2003, a London newspaper's concert review creates controversy. The paper was The Guardian; the concert, a London performance two nights earlier by the Texas country act The Dixie Chicks. Behind President George W. Bush, America was building up to invade Iraq in the War on Terror. During a break between songs, singer Natalie Maines decided to go political, telling the audience, "Just so you know, we’re on the good side with y’all. We do not want this war, this violence. And we’re ashamed the President of the United States is from Texas.” Two days later, reporter Betty Clarke included a slightly edited version of the comment in her review. Even somewhat softened, the comment was near blasphemy to the highly conservative American country music audience back home. Radio stations were flooded with calls from listeners demanding the Dixie Chicks be removed from their playlists, and calling for a boycott of their upcoming U.S. tour. It was an epic fall from grace for a group that had, just a month earlier, played the halftime show of the Super Bowl to outstanding reviews. The trio would drop from sight and not record again until 2020, rebranded The Chicks. (photo taken at Madison Square Garden 4 months after the Guardian controversy)

 

On March 13, 1862, Congress passes the Act Prohibiting the Return of Slaves. As the nation became fully embroiled in the Civil War and Federal troops invaded the South, emboldened slaves began escaping from bondage and seeking out freedom with the Yankees with greater frequency. Some enterprising commanders created labor details of these men and women, but others sought out their owners and returned the escapees, in accordance with the Fugitive Slave Act of 1850. The APRS effectively annulled FSA and specified court martial for officers who returned escapees to slavery.


On March 13, 1930, the Lowell Observatory in Arizona confirmed the existence of a ninth planet beyond Neptune. Observatory directors chose the name Pluto for the planet from more than a thousand suggestions, Pluto being offered by an 11-year old English girl. Astronomers had suspected the existence of a planet beyond Neptune since its discovery in 1846, believing peculiarities in Uranus' orbit were being caused by a body other than Neptune. Pluto is the tenth largest body in our Solar System and the largest object in the Kuiper Belt, an array of objects orbiting the Sun beyond Neptune, but its status as a planet was relatively short-lived. In 2006 the International Astronomical Union redefined terms and demoted Pluto to the status of dwarf planet.


On March 13, 1964, the murder of a Queens bar manager gives rise to a new herd psychology. 28-year old Kitty Genovese was stabbed to death outside her apartment in the early hours of the morning. Reports indicate she was only injured at first, her attacker being scared away by a neighbor's shouting. But that was the extent of the neighbor's involvement, and the attacker, 29-year old Winston Mosely returned a short time later to rob, rape, and eventually kill Genovese. The New York Times sensationalized the attack, drawing on various uncorroborated accounts to eventually report that as many as 38 people saw the attack and failed to intervene or even call police. Psychologists termed the phenomenon the "bystander effect." More than 40 years later, American Psychologist magazine would challenge NYT's reporting, but it wasn't until 2016 that the paper admitted its story was "flawed," saying the number of witnesses was "grossly exagerrated" and that some had indeed called police.

 

Plutoniums everywhere should have mounted an aggressive Twittr campaign against this outrage!

 

On March 14, 4891, a mob of New Orleans residents captures and lynches 11 Italian Americans in one of the largest mass lynchings in American history. Five months earlier, NO police chief David Hennessy was gunned down in the streets, presumably over his having taken sides in a feud between two Italian families. Hennessy didn't identify his killer before dying the following day but uttered the word "dagoes" on his deathbed. Residents were outraged and Mayor Joseph Shakespeare to allegedly order police to round up every Italian they could find. About 250 were arrested and nine stood trial. When six were acquitted and the remaining 3 walked on a mistrial, the outrage blew up again. The nine defendants had been held over in parish prison, and a "committee on safety" broke into the jail and dragged out 11 inmates. Six had been defendants, but the remainder were grabbed simply because they were Italian. In the aftermath, Italy pulled its consulate from the city and, for a time, cut off all diplomatic relations with the U.S. The American press, meanwhile, was sympathetic to the lynchers, running stories of the Italian crime family world that introduced a new word into the American lexicon: Mafia.


On March 14, 1967, the body of President John F. Kennedy is moved to its current gravesite. JFK had been buried at Arlington National Cemetery just below the Custis-Lee Mansion (a change from the expectation that he would be buried at the family plot in Massachusetts; JFK had toured Arlington a year before and on seeing the view of D.C. from the mansion remarked,"I could stay here forever.") three days after his assassination. During preparations, the widowed Jackie Kennedy requested an eternal flame at the site. Though Arlington has a "no eternal flames" rule, the Army relented on the grounds that the chosen burial site was not within the cemetery itself. Three years and 16 million visitors later, the government redesigned the 3 acre site to be more accommodating to visitors, and to construct a safer eternal flame. The redesign required the body to be moved about 20 feet. He and Jackie's two deceased children, who were buried alongside their father, were also moved, and Jackie's body joined them in 1994.


On March 14, 124, John "Jack" Mack, co-founder (along with his 2 brothers) of Mack Trucks, Inc., is killed in a car-trolley collision in Weatherly, PA. Ironically, trolley buses were the first product built by the Mack Brothers Company when founded in 1900. They began producing heavy trucks in 1907. The brothers sold out to a rival company in 1911, which renamed it Mack Trucks. They were major suppliers of trucks to both the American and British armies during WWI, and when British soldiers began comparing the durable truck with the blunt nose to the English bulldog, the company adopted the bulldog as its logo. Though the company was bought out by Volvo in 2001, Mack trucks have remained an American symbol for toughness for decades.

 

On March 15, 1783, General George Washington subverts a potential coup d'etat. Washington's Continental Army is about 6 months away from ultimate victory at Yorktown, but today, his officers are furious over the Continental Congress' failure to pay the army, and to reimburse officers for personal expenses related to their services. An anonymous letter, possibly written by General Horatio Gates' aide, suggested open revolt against the Congress. Washington quells the revolt with an impassioned speech to the officers at Newburgh, NY. Washington promised to speak to the Congress on their behalf, but the climactic moment came when Washington removed a letter from a member of Congress from his pocket, along with his spectacles. In an embarrassed tone, Washington said, "Gentlemen, you must pardon me. I have grown old in the service of my country and now find that I am growing blind." The contents of the letter he proceded to read are unknown, but the realization of the sacrifices their general had made for the cause ended the revolt talk for good.


On March 15, 1917, Czar Nicholas II abdicates the throne of Russia. Nicholas succeeded to the throne in 1894, his reign enduring the Revolution of 1905 and the Russo-Japanese War. The nation's entry into WWI increased unrest for the monarchy, leading to further revolt in February. Under threat of overthrow and exile, Nicholas first abdicated the throne to his 13-year old son Alexei, but doctors advised him that Alexei's health would not permit him to rule. Nicholas next turned the throne over to his brother, the Grand Duke Michael, who said he would not accept unless the Russian people were allowed a general election to either continue with the monarchy or create a republican government. Michael's refusal of the throne ended the Romanov Dynasty's hold on Russia at 304 years. The Provincial Government placed the royal family under house arrest the same day; they were executed 16 months later.


On March 15, 1869, the Cincinnati Red Stockings of the National Association of Base Ball Players hire English cricket star Harry Wright as player/manager, making the Red Stockings the first professional baseball team. The Red Stockings formed in 1866 as a member club of the NABBP, which was all-amateur at the time. When the Association announced it would permit the open payment of players in '69, the Red Stockings were the quickest club to take advantage, signing 10 players that spring. They won their first game 45-9 (pitchers were not yet throwing overhand, and high scores were not uncommon), and would go 57-0 in that first pro season. In 1871, the Red Stockings moved to Boston. Banished from the league for selling beer at games, in 1876 they and four other NABBP teams formed the National League of Baseball Clubs. The Red Stockings would later become the Boston Braves; the Cincinnati Red Stockings (later, the Reds) joined the League in 1882 as a new franchise, but still claim the original team's history as the nation's oldest professional sports franchise.

 

On March 16, 1968, some 500 Vietnamese civilians are massacred by U.S. soldiers at the village of My Lai. The army had received word that Viet Cong guerillas had taken cover in a cluster of four villages, including My Lai. A platoon under 1st Lt. William Calley was sent in to destroy the village, with orders to consider anyone found there to be considered either a VC or a sympathizer. Calley's soldiers raped women and tortured men and children before herding the villagers into a ditch and opening fire. The slaughter stopped only when a U.S. helicopter pilot physically landed his aircraft between the villager and their executioners. The army covered up the massacre until the story was broken by an investigative journalist in late 1969.


On March 16, 1926, Clark University physics professor Robert Goddard successfully launches the first liquid-fueled rocket in Auburn, PA. Rockets powered by gunpowder had been successfully used for military purposes for centuries. Fascinated by H.G. Welles' stories of space flight, Goddard devoted his life to rocketry. He would write several papers (including one that proposed an unmanned landing on the moon), and earn 2 patents along with a grant from the Smithsonian before finally launching his historic rocket, which was 10 feet long and powered by a combination of liquid oxygen and gasoline. The fuel supplies lasted just over two seconds, propelling the rocket to an estimated altitude of 40 feet. In all, Goddard would launch 31 rockets, one reaching an altitude of 1.7 miles, before his death in 1945.


On March 16, 1955, Montreal hockey fans riot over the suspension of their hero. Three days earlier, Montreal Canadiens star Maurice "Rocket" Richard - the leading scorer in the NHL at the time - was high-sticked by a Boston Bruins defensiveman. Though a penalty was issued, The Rocket went ballistic, attacking the Bruin with his stick and punching the referee in the head twice. NHL President Clarence Campbell suspended Richard for the season, including the upcoming playoffs, then had the temerity to attend that night's home game between Montreal and the Detroit Red Wings. From the start of the game, Canadiens fans pelted Campbell with objects. When police set off a teargas bomb in the arena, fans evacuated and launched a full-on riot outside, causing $100,000 in damage and 33 injuries. The unrest carried into the next day, calming only when The Rocket appeared on television and pleaded for peace, promising at the same time to lead the Canadiens to a Stanley Cup title the following season. He would make good on the promise.